Preach to the Choir

I’ve discovered that preaching to the choir is one of the best ways to free yourself from stress. I know preaching to the choir has a negative connotation because it means you are trying to convince someone who is already convinced, thus wasting your time and energy.

However, contrary to the conventional wisdom, Jesus wants us to preach only to the choir when he says, “feed my sheep.” That means he has already chosen an audience for you to serve. He wants you to focus on the sheep, not the goats or pigs.

The opposite of preaching to the choir is “throwing pearls to the pigs.” Jesus said if you throw pearls to the pigs, they do not only unappreciative of your pearls but also attack you for giving them. That would be a formula for stress. How many of us try to feed the pigs and not the sheep?

In his book “Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us,” Seth Godin presents the idea that each of us has a tribe waiting for us to lead. A tribe is like a flock connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea. Our life is best used and meaningful when we find our tribe and serve them.

Godin asserts that your tribe is waiting for you to lead them. The problem is, how do you identify and find your tribe so that you don’t waste your lives on unfruitful enterprises? Don’t waste your life whistling in the wind. God has a target market for you to distribute your pearls.

I know, out of kindness, we don’t want to leave anyone out. We want to feed every animal, not just the sheep. We want to force-feed the pigs with pearls and complain about fruitlessness. Elbert Einstein said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Let’s be wise.

The good news is that Jesus has taught us how to find the flock so that we can be fruitful by preaching to the choir and not wasting our lives throwing pearls to the pigs. So, let’s explore from today’s scripture lesson how to identify the flock we are called to serve. Let’s begin!